month in numbers– May 2012

As is typically the way during the approach of British summertime, the mind does tend to turn to numerical ruminations: the number of depressingly rainy days (high), the number of days the temperature gets above 12 degrees (low), and so on. But if you prefer your numbers a little less waterlogged and a little more www-focused then read on: here come the darling stats of May.

80%

Hailing a fare thee well to the Fail Whale, this is how much faster Twitter is going to be loading from now on, says Marketing Land. Plus a side note, whilst we’re on the subject of goodbyes – Twitter’s old logo has also gone to the giant bird nest in the sky, replaced by a newer, more streamlined wee chirper – check it out over at Business Insider.

51%

Continuing the ornithological theme, feathers are getting ruffled over this number, the drop in referrals to Facebook from Google. Cue finger pointing at Google’s Search Plus Your World, but with Bing referrals also down, the reasons behind the drop are far from clear. Read more at Econsultancy.

13%

You might love it, you might hate it, but according to a new report, this is the percentage increase in post engagement on Facebook since the introduction of Timeline for business pages at the end of March – see the full article over at All Facebook. In the meantime, if Timeline has still got you in a flap, scoot over to our own @attacatchristie’s blogpost for tips and advice on pimping your page for the new format.

$1 billion

I’m still chirruping on about Pinterest – this is amount that the image bookmarking site is estimated to be valued at. Although dogged with negative PR around its spamability and watch-out-for-the-small-print terms and conditions, it’s still a big referrer of traffic with great potential for e-commerce sites. I would like to see some updated stats on usage in the UK though… For more on the valuation, see this article over at the Next Web.

46%

The percentage of the time Wikipedia appears on Page 1 of Google, vs. 25% on Bing, according to a report by Conductor. Fly on over to Search Engine Land to check out the full article on the big dubya’s search engine visibility.

That’s all folks – here’s hoping for better weather and more numbers of note in June!